The new Governor of the Bank of England is to be questioned about claims that
the Bank’s governance structures are too weak.

MPs on the Treasury Select Committee will quiz Mark Carney on whether he plans to push for more supervision of the central bank when he takes charge in July.

Mr Carney is understood to favour changes to the governance of the Bank and is likely to face detailed questioning from the MPs on exactly how he will make the institution more accountable.

Among the issues under discussion will be reform of the Bank of England’s Court and the role of chairman.

Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury committee, has been a frequent critic of the Bank’s governance and is known to want to make the Governor more accountable to Parliament and the Court.

Speaking late last year in a Radio 4 documentary on the Bank, Mr Tyrie said: “One of the points that we’ve been concerned about on the [committee] is that the legislation creates what amounts to a single point of systemic risk for a new Governor and that it’s very important that he therefore be buttressed and challenged not only by his Deputy Governors internally but also by a proper board at the Bank of England.”

Sir Mervyn King, the outgoing Governor, has challenged the need for such radical change, despite the increase in the Bank’s power, which from April will include the direct supervision of Britain’s banking system through the new Prudential Regulation Authority.

As well as the supervision of the Bank, Mr Carney will also be questioned about the manner of his appointment, which has drawn criticism as it seemed to bypass the formal hiring process.

Mr Carney, the former governor of the Central Bank of Canada and former senior executive at Goldman Sachs, had publicly ruled himself out, but was persuaded to change his mind after high-level lobbying.

The MPs will also want to ask Mr Carney about his plans to stimulate economic growth, which has remained moribund despite hundreds of billions of pounds of quantitative easing by the Bank of England.